How hotwire (belongs to Expedia) just fucked up my vacation day, and some questions for Expedia employees
So I booked a hotel through hotwire's hot deal several days ago and hotwire charged my credit card. Today we drove through awful downtown traffic to go to our hotel, paid 10 tip for valet parking, and the front desk told us hotwire cancelled our reservation a few hours ago. No explanation, no phone call or emails. The hotel said the room type I booked is still available, but if I want to stay I have to pay higher price, I was pissed and booked another hotel on bookings.com I called hotwire and the customer service person told me "some management cancelled my reservation" and gave me a number to call them, nobody answered. I researched a little and found out that it's a shenanigan all the Expedia companies frequently do, not just hotwire.com: cancel customers' reservation, without any warning or explanation, people only find out when they arrive the hotel front desk. Expedia/hotwire employees, I have some questions about this practice: 1 Why would they cancel reservation when the room type is still available? And when such thing happens, what prevents them from letting me know so I can make other plans in advance? 2 I wasted my precious vacation time, gas, and my party was pissed. When airline companies messed up overbooking, they give customers something, usually credits or hotel. According to Internet, hotwire don't give customers anything when they fuck up. Why? Is it possible for me to negotiate with them/threaten them to get some compensation for my loss? 3 Expedia is obviously awared of this unethical practice and allow this among all its subsidiaries. What if they fucked up families with toddlers, people with disabilities or health issues, or people who arrived late at night and have no access to Internet, or other vacant hotels near by? Are management still fine with it because there are no current laws to protect customers from Expedia not honoring reservations? I told my mum how Expedia and hotels.com recruiters frequently harass me. She said "don't ever work for them, if they fuck over their customers, they certainly wouldn't hesitate to fuck over their employees" lol
This is why you should use AirBnB. They have great customer service.
the room type you want isn't aways available at some hot destinations, my experience with bookings.com so far is pretty positive, nice ux and super easy cancellation
Airbnb service is great- especially when they have fucked up. Few years ago I booked an entire apartment for a family trip to LA. The door was locked and we couldn't get in and the owner was out of country. Airbnb comped our entire stay at any hotel we wanted - no budget restraints and included parking!
i work with expedia and would really like to help and can check what really happened..challenge is how we remain anonymous :) let me forward this to our hotwire contact and see what can be done. Sorry to hear this.
I can understand where you are coming from
gosh i hate hotwire customer service so much.. something similar happened to me too and no explanation either . i never use them again..
Expedia sucks
Your experience really sucks and I'm so sorry for that. However, based on what you described it sounds like it was the hotel who cancelled it. That isn't the fault of hotwire or Expedia. In general hotels want you to book directly with them since it cuts out the travel agent fee; a select few will penalize customers for it. I promise Expedia gets no benefit if they cancel your booking life that. Not only are you completely pissed off, but we also don't get paid by the hotel. Meanwhile the hotel wins by forcing you to pay a higher rate since you just arrived for check in and don't have the luxury of time. I sent you a pm; can get this to the right people to dig into what really happened either way if you are willing.
thanks for offering help, but the customer service person told me it's the hotwire management who called the hotel and cancelled the reservation, which matches the story from the hotel front desk, I'll send you the number if hotwire agrees on proper compensation first, say a %150 refund
Read wsj article of how expedia handles customers reservations. So your experience is not uncommon https://www.google.com/amp/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/the-mystery-of-vanishing-hotel-reservations-1436376090
I have a friend who works for expedia. Even he had a similar experience. He went to hotel to checkin only to find hotel does not have the reservation. He drove 5 hours back home. Expedia sucks big time. I guess they are going down hill anyway. Next time book on priceline websites they are better than expedia
Lol. As OPs mom said, your friend got double fucked. Once as employee and once as a customer π€£π€£π€£
Can you sum it up? The article is behind a paywall.
Basically expedia messes up reservations. They lose them, not trasmitting them over the wire. They THINk its fraud and go and cancel them. Contracts change, they cancel the booking etc...... it a common occurance with expedia websites. They dont handle these sitautions well. Refunds take months and several hours of your life with non native english call center employees
To complete this common story you will spend the next 2 months going in circles with customer service via email and phone. If you stick it out long enough you'll get a refund. Either way you'll have learned your lesson and never book a hotel through Expedia again.
just tweet them and get all you friends and family to like and retweet. garantee you it will be solved in 24hrs
maybe even write a medium post about it if you really wanna throw fire